Is Tropicana Mortgaging It’s Future With New Brand?
Earlier this week, Jon blogged about Tropicana and the movement of brands towards embraceable personal values.
The blog came a few days too late for me, because on Sunday night, upon entering the orange juice section of Albertson’s, I turned to my wife and exclaimed, “Where the &*$! is the Tropicana?”
Because you see, I’m a youngish male. Even though I do 99% of the food shopping in my household (and in college for that matter) I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Tropicana ad in my life. I don’t watch Lifetime and TBS on Sunday afternoon, and haven’t picked up a Better Homes and Garden, ever, and apparently males don’t shop enough to be served non-beer advertising. So, I didn’t know about the Tropicana rebranding.
My first reaction to Tropicana’s new boring packaging was that someone really screwed up badly in the marketing department. Their new packaging looks like store-bought packaging by the Safeways and Costcos of the world.
I grabbed my OJ and went home. And then it hit me.
Generic brand packaging is bland and boring. Because of this, it stands out on the shelves. It says “Hey look at me, I’m the same thing (kinda), but cheaper.”
And this is what I think Tropicana is deftly doing. Of course they know that the new packaging is sparse, boring, cold and well…generic. They are considering consumer mindset: money, money, family, money, money. At all levels, consumers are opting for a little less taste and a little more coin in their pockets.
Right now, Tropicana looks like the cheaper brand, and people will buy it. The only problem is that once you become a cheap brand, it takes a long time, and a lot of money, to build that brand back up when the economy returns, and consumer mindset changes.
Is Pepsi mortgaging their future as well?
great observation scott. i had never really thought about this until you mentioned it. i always reach for the generic brand at the store because it is cheaper and i can’t taste the difference. never did i notice before though that all of the generic packaging is boring but it some how always attracts my eyes first.
oh and thanks for referring to the store as safeway instead of vons (makes me think of home)!
Ok, does anyone else think Pepsi’s new packaging looks like Obama’s logo? Hmmmm…..
Pepsi borrowing from Obama? No. Ya think?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwzpQRUGqrE
UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE
I opened the refrigerator door this weekend and I swear I thought to myself, “Who the &*$@& bought the crappy OJ this week?”
Who in the world thinks that the generic tastes like the original? Have you ever tasted those Toasted Oats? Nothing like cheerios. And that new packaging on Tropicana looks like communist orange juice. I miss my Tropicana packaging with the little orange that takes me back to the time where they ran the commercials where all the kids tried to stick in the straw to the orange while that awesome music was playing in the background. You know the one. Don’t lie and say you don’t remember. Especially you Kelsey Danes. I know you remember.
Not gonna lie. They were pretty darn cute: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNv3C2rN6ik&NR=1
oh my gosh scott. in response to your opening the fridge and saying “who bought the crappy oj this week”…i just realized sitting here drinking a “mini oj” that i bought last week at the store, that it is actually tropicana. i totally thought i had bought the generic brand. shows how much their new packaging is actually working. wow!
The Tropicana rebrand is horrid. It looks cheap and generic, but the price isn’t any different. I doubt that Tropicana is really trying to camouflage itself and “trick” customers into buying it. Tricking customers does not engender brand loyalty.
The rebrand’s biggest failure is from a functional perspective. The different varieties of Tropicana look extremely similar. For example, I tend to buy “Tropicana Calcium and Vitamin D, Pulp Free”. Compare its 64oz package to the 64oz package for “Tropicana Low Acid, Pulp Free”. They are virtually identical.
Let’s compare the previous 64 oz. design to the new design. The previous design had large, legible text (e.g. “LOW ACID”). The new design has smaller, less legible text (orange text on an orange background, green on orange, etc.). The previous design had large, color coded areas (e.g. green-blue for LOW ACID, blue for CALCIUM). The new design retains color-coding, but castrates it. For example, the new design has a color coded bar along the top lip of the carton. Not only is the bar small, but it is not visible if you are looking up at the carton. These problems are further compounded for people with bad vision.
In the end, I’m really curious how much thought/time/money Tropicana put into this rebrand. Did they even do any kind of evaluation or user studies? For example, line up the cartons like you’d find them in a store. Include all the different varieties. Tell participants to pick out a particular type of Tropicana. Observe them. Time them.
We did an eye tracking study on the effectiveness of the ‘New’ pack in the UK where we have never had the straw graphic and the results predict a 13% loss of sales. Tropicana shoppers don’t see new packages at shelf and are drawn to Tesco’s own brand products that have some similarities to the UK Tropicana pack. The truth about the sales loss has little to do with that graphic, and everything to do with shoppers ‘ability to find the new packages at shelf. Consumers have to find the product at shelf before they can buy it. One eye tracking study and this could have been avoided!
http://thinkeyetracking.com/Blog/
[...] What’s even more interesting is that I’ve since learned that they’ve decide to go back to their old design after some customer complaints. Rather than trying to explain the whole story, here’s a photo of the old and new packaging, from this website: [...]